STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms KARA COOK (Bonner) (13:40): Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. We remember the babies who never took their first breath, the babies held for only a moment and the babies whose parents never had the chance to hold them. Every day in Australia around 285 families experience miscarriage and six babies are stillborn.

For too long, pregnancy and infant loss were met with silence, the expectation to move on or the assumption that an early loss must have hurt less. It absolutely doesn't. That's why our government has invested $9.5 million in a miscarriage support package, including Miscarriage Matters, a national education program and $6.8 million in stillbirth support, including $4.2 million for the Red Rose Hospital to Home program.

Almost 12 months ago in this place, we passed Baby Priya's law, protecting employer funded paid parental leave for parents after a stillbirth or the death of a child. To every family who has experienced pregnancy or infant loss: your baby mattered. Your grief matters.

Your family deserves support. I invite everyone here to join me in a moment of silence to honour and remember all of the little lives lost. Thank you.